There is a passage in the Bible’s book of Romans that sounds remarkably like a situation we have today in America as various individuals and groups fight to remove any mention of God from the education system.
In Romans 1:28-32, the writer, Paul, talks about the Antediluvians (the pre-flood people): "Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."(NIV translation).
Does any of that sound like an accurate description of what our culture has become? There is a book called "Romance of Romans," by N. W. Hutchings, which gives a verse-by-verse commentary on the Book of Romans. Mr. Hutchings offers his explanation as to the meaning of these verses, and you can see how it also applies to this present generation. Most of the following is from his book:
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"They did not like to retain God in their knowledge," or as we would say today, "excluding God from education." When a nation begins to become so wise in its own conceits that it kicks God out of the education of youth, then that nation is headed for grave trouble. You cannot separate God from education, because without a Creator, all of man's knowledge is foolishness. As Paul indicates here in Romans 1, education without God only makes men clever devils.
When the Antediluvians kicked God out of their schools, God gave them over to a reprobate mind. We read this explanation of reprobate in Webster's New World Dictionary: "To reject and abandon as beyond salvation; depraved; corrupt; unprincipled; rejected by God; excluded from salvation and lost in sin." What the Antediluvians did was to test God. Paul said they knew God and they knew about the judgment of God against sin. They were without excuse. They tested God to see if He would, as a God of love, bring judgment against those who defied His laws, corrupted the world with sin, and then raised up false Gods to worship. Thus, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, and in this God-forsaken condition they committed deeds so foul and evil that even the lowest beast of the fields would not stoop so low.
Like the Antediluvians, our government has kicked God out of public education; they don’t want our children to retain God in their knowledge. Therefore, God is giving us up, and in a reprobate condition the people are turning to crime, drugs, sex, and homosexuality. We read in Genesis 6:3, "And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man..." When God gave them up, He took the Holy Spirit out of the way, and the lusts of the flesh took complete command of the souls and minds of men. It seems the same thing is coming to pass in our day.
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To put it bluntly; separating God from education is about the dumbest thing this country has done, or maybe the second dumbest, next to legalized abortion. What we did was take God out of schools and replace Him with guns and condoms, and all of the other goodies named in Romans 1:28-32. The Lord took care of the Godless Antediluvian generation with a great flood. And as our generation seems to be getting more and more Godless, what do you think may be in store for us? Read Matthew 24, Luke 21, Mark 13, and the book of Revelations, for the answer.
By George Konig
Christian Internet Forum
www.georgekonig.org
Jan. 4, 2004
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